Dating the Bible

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The oldest surviving Hebrew Bible manuscripts including the Dead Sea Scrolls date to about the 2nd century BCE (fragmentary) and some are stored at the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem. The oldest record of the complete text survives in a Greek translation called the Septuagint, dating to the 4th century CE (Codex Sinaiticus). The oldest extant manuscripts of the vocalized Masoretic text, which modern editions are based upon, date to the 9th century CE.^{[citation needed]} With the exception of a few biblical sections in the Prophets, virtually no biblical text is contemporaneous with the events it describes, and was subject to revision by later authors.^[1]

From the internal testimony of the texts, the individual books of the 27-book New Testament canon are likely dated to the 1st century CE. The first book written was probably 1 Thessalonians, written at around 50 CE.^[2] The last book of the canon is the Book of Revelation said to be written by John of Patmos during the reign of Domitian (81-96).^[3]

Since the original writing of the scriptures, huge volumes of copies have been made of the originals, which are no longer extant, and copies have been made of those copies, resulting in several text types. Archaeologists have recovered about 5,500 New Testament manuscripts, being fragments or complete books.^[4] The earliest extant fragment of the New Testament is the Rylands Library Papyrus P52, a piece of the Gospel of John dated to the first half of the 2nd century. Dating the composition of the texts relies primarily on internal evidence, including direct references to historical events, as resorting to textual criticism, philological and linguistic evidence is very subjective.

The Hebrew Bible

Torah

Main articles: Mosaic authorship and Documentary hypothesis

The first five books of the bible in Judaism are called the Torah, meaning "law" or "instruction", and are regarded as the most important section of the Scriptures, traditionally thought to have been written between the 16th century and the 12th century BCE by Moses himself. Followers of the Copenhagen School place its origins in 5th century Yehud Medinata.^[5]

Deuteronomy is treated separately from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. The process of its formation probably took several hundred years, from the 8th century to the 6th BCE.^[6] It began as no more than the set of religious laws which today make up the bulk of the book; later it was extended in order to be used as the introduction to the comprehensive history of Israel written in the early part of the 6th century; and later still it was detached from the history, extended yet again, and used to conclude the story told in Genesis-Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers.^[7]

Nevi'im (Prophets)

Main article: Nevi'im

Book of Nevi'im	Scholarly dating
Book of Joshua	ca. 625 BCE by the Deuteronomist (called D) working with traditional materials
Book of Judges	ca. 625 BCE by the Deuteronomist (called D) working with traditional materials
Books of Samuel	ca. 625 BCE by the Deuteronomist (called D) working with traditional materials
Books of Kings	ca. 625 BCE by the Deuteronomist (called D) working with traditional materials
Book of Isaiah	Three main authors and an extensive editing process: Isaiah 1-39 "Historical Isaiah" with multiple layers of editing, 8th century BCE Isaiah 40-55 Exilic(Deutero-Isaiah), 6th century BCE Isaiah 56-66 post-exilic(Trito-Isaiah), 6th-5th century BCE
Book of Jeremiah	late 6th century BCE or later
Book of Ezekiel	6th century BCE or later
Book of Hosea	8th century BCE or later
Book of Joel	unknown
Book of Amos	8th century BCE or later
Book of Obadiah	6th century BCE or later
Book of Jonah	6th century BCE or later
Book of Micah	mid 6th century BCE or later
Book of Nahum	8th century BCE or later
Book of Habakkuk	6th century BCE or later
Book of Zephaniah	7th century BCE or later
Book of Haggai	5th century BCE or later
Book of Zechariah	5th century BCE or later
Book of Malachi	Early 5th century BCE or later

Ketuvim (Writings)

Main article: Ketuvim

Book of Ketuvim	Scholarly dating^{[citation needed]}
Psalms	The bulk of the Psalms appear to have been written for use in the Temple, which existed from around 950-586 BCE and, after rebuilding, from the 5th century BCE until 70 CE.
Book of Proverbs	Some old material from the ancient sages, some later material from the 6th century BCE or later, some material borrowed from the ancient Egyptian text called the Instructions of Amenemopet
Book of Job	5th century BCE
Song of Songs or Song of Solomon	scholarly estimates vary between 950 BCE to 200 BCE
Book of Ruth	6th century BCE or later
Lamentations	6th century BCE or later
Ecclesiastes	4th century BCE or later
Book of Esther	4th century BCE or later
Book of Daniel	ca. 165 BCE^[8]^[9]
Book of Ezra-Book of Nehemiah	4th century BCE or slightly later
Chronicles	4th century BCE or slightly later

Deuterocanonical books

Deuterocanonical books are books considered by the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy to be canonical parts of the Christian Old Testament but are not present in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and Protestant Bible.

Book of Deuterocanon	Scholarly dating
Tobit	2nd century BCE
Judith
1 Maccabees	ca. 100 BCE
2 Maccabees	ca. 124 BCE
3 Maccabees	1st century BCE or 1st century CE
4 Maccabees	1st century BCE or 1st century CE
Wisdom	during the Jewish Hellenistic period
Sirach	2nd century BCE
Letter of Jeremiah	unknown
Additions to Daniel	2nd century BCE
Baruch	during or shortly after the period of the Maccabees

The New Testament

The following table gives the most widely accepted dates for the composition of the New Testament books, together with the earliest preserved fragment for each text.

Book	Dates determined by scholars	Earliest Known Fragment
Gospel of Matthew	70-110 CE^[10]	${\mathfrak {P}}$ (150–200 CE)
Gospel of Mark	60-70 CE	${\mathfrak {P}}$ (350 CE)
Gospel of Luke	60-90 CE	${\mathfrak {P}}$ , ${\mathfrak {P}}$ (175–250 CE)
Gospel of John	80-95 CE	${\mathfrak {P}}$ ⁵² (125–160 CE)
Acts	60-90 CE	${\mathfrak {P}}$ , ${\mathfrak {P}}$ , ${\mathfrak {P}}$ , ${\mathfrak {P}}$ , ${\mathfrak {P}}$ (250 CE)
Romans	57–58 CE	${\mathfrak {P}}$ (late 2nd century or 3rd century CE)
Corinthians	57 CE	${\mathfrak {P}}$ (late 2nd century or 3rd century CE)
Galatians	45-55 CE	${\mathfrak {P}}$ (late 2nd century or 3rd century CE)
Ephesians	65 CE	${\mathfrak {P}}$ (late 2nd century or 3rd century CE)
Philippians	57–62 CE	${\mathfrak {P}}$ (late 2nd century or 3rd century CE)
Colossians	60 CE +^{[citation needed]}	${\mathfrak {P}}$ (late 2nd century or 3rd century CE)
1 Thessalonians	50 CE^[2]	${\mathfrak {P}}$ (late 2nd century or 3rd century CE)
2 Thessalonians	50-54 CE^[11]^[12]	${\mathfrak {P}}$ (300 CE)
Timothy	60-100 CE^{[citation needed]}	Codex Sinaiticus (350 CE)
Titus	60-100 CE^{[citation needed]}	${\mathfrak {P}}$ (200 CE)
Philemon	56 CE^{[citation needed]}	${\mathfrak {P}}$ (3rd century CE)
Hebrews	63-90 CE^{[citation needed]}	${\mathfrak {P}}$ (late 2nd century or 3rd century CE)
James	50-200 CE^{[citation needed]}	${\mathfrak {P}}$ , ${\mathfrak {P}}$ (early 3rd century CE)
First Peter	60-96 CE^{[citation needed]}	${\mathfrak {P}}$ (3rd/4th century CE)
Second Peter	60-130 CE^{[citation needed]}	${\mathfrak {P}}$ (3rd/4th century CE)
Epistles of John	90-110 CE^[13]	${\mathfrak {P}}$ , Uncial 0232, Codex Sinaiticus (3rd/4th century CE)
Jude	66-90 CE^{[citation needed]}	${\mathfrak {P}}$ (3rd/4th century CE)
Revelation	68-100 CE^{[citation needed]}	${\mathfrak {P}}$ (150–200 CE)

Notes

↑ Bernstein 1996, p. 134
↑ 2.0 2.1 Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, Anchor Bible, 1997. pp. 456-466.
↑ Robert Mounce. The Book of Revelation, pg. 15-16. Cambridge: Eerdman's. Books.google.com
↑ Robert Stewart, The Reliability of the New Testament: Bart Ehrman and Daniel Wallace in Dialogue p17
↑ Ska, Jean-Louis, "Introduction to reading the Pentateuch" (Eisenbrauns, 2006) pp.217 ff.
↑ Miller, Patrick D., "Deuteronomy" (John Knox Press, 1990) pp.2–3
↑ Van Seters, John, "The Pentateuch: a social-science commentary" T&T Clark, 2004) p.93. Google Books. 23 August 2004. ISBN 978-0-567-08088-2. Retrieved 3 October 2010.
↑ Dillard and Longman, An Introduction to the Old Testament, Apollos 1995, pp. 329-350.
↑ Miller, Stephen R. (1994). Daniel (null ed.). Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman & Holman. p. 94. ISBN 978-0-8054-0118-9.
↑ Duling 2010, p. 298-299.
↑ "The New Testament (Recovery Version)" pg. 959, ISBN 1-57593-907-X (economy edition, black)
↑ Earl D. Radmacher, (Th.D.), Ronald B. Allen (Th.D.), H. Wayne House, (Th.D., J.D.). "NKJV Study Bible (Second Edition)" pg. 1903.
↑ Kim 2003, p. 250.

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